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Updated October 12th, 2020 at 18:50 IST

Armenian FM in Moscow to discuss Karabakh ceasefire

Armenia's Foreign Minister visited Moscow on Monday for talks with his Russian counterpart on a cease-fire deal brokered by Russia to end hostilities in the separatist territory of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Armenian FM in Moscow to discuss Karabakh ceasefire
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Armenia's Foreign Minister visited Moscow on Monday for talks with his Russian counterpart on a cease-fire deal brokered by Russia to end hostilities in the separatist territory of Nagorno-Karabakh.

The cease-fire came into effect on Saturday, but was immediately challenged by claims of violations by both Armenia and Azerbaijan that persisted throughout the weekend and continued on Monday morning.

"We reached an important agreement (last Saturday), initiated by President Putin, but we see that this agreement is not being fully complied with and the fighting is continuing," Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in his opening remarks.

He added Russia expects its close contacts with Armenian and Azerbaijani officials "will ensure full compliance with the agreements that were reached in a trilateral format."

Armenia's Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanyan, meanwhile, thanked Russia for its role in the ceasefire agreement, adding that "the role of Russia in this remains very important."

Mnatsakanyan blamed Azerbaijan for not complying with its end of the ceasefire agreement, and for targeting civilians, which he said was "equivalent to war crimes."

He claimed that Azerbaijan has openly expressed a military solution to the Karabakh conflict "as well as the physical extermination of its people."

The recent bout of fighting between Azerbaijani and Armenian forces started September 27 and has left hundreds of people dead in the biggest escalation of the decades-old conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh since a separatist war there ended in 1994.

The region lies in Azerbaijan but has been under control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by Armenia.

The foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan signed a truce in Moscow after Russian President Vladimir Putin brokered it in a series of calls with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian.

The deal stipulated that the cease-fire should pave the way for talks on settling the conflict.

Had the truce held, it would have marked a major diplomatic coup for Russia, which has a security pact with Armenia but has also cultivated warm ties with Azerbaijan.

Armenia and Azerbaijan have been locked for decades in a conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, where a separatist war was fought in the early 1990s until three years after the breakup of the Soviet Union.

The region in the Caucasus Mountains of about 4,400 square kilometers (1,700 square miles), roughly the size of the U.S. state of Delaware, is 50 kilometers (30 miles) from the Armenian border.

It has been under the control of ethnic Armenian forces and the Armenian military since the 1994 end of a full-scale separatist war that killed about 30,000 people and displaced an estimated 1 million.

This story has not been edited by www.republicworld.com and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.

(Representative Image)

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Published October 12th, 2020 at 18:49 IST

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